Numerosas organizaciones no gubernamentales, ex altos funcionarios del Banco Mundial y el sindicato de la institución piden la renuncia de Wolfowitz por favorecer, de manera impropia y en violación de los protocolos internos, a su novia, Shaha Riza, con un aumento de salario y una transferencia al Departamento de Estado estadounidense. La polémica por este asunto se incrementó además por nuevas revelaciones sobre pasadas irregularidades de la funcionaria.

"Según el no gubernamental Government Accountability Project (GAP, Proyecto para la Responsabilidad del Gobierno), con sede en Washington, que investigó el caso desde el comienzo, fuentes internas del Banco confirmaron que Riza nunca había solicitado ni recibido permiso del organismo para trabajar en el SAIC, el mayor contratista de defensa del gobierno de Estados Unidos cuando Wolfowitz se desempeñaba como subsecretario de Defensa... La Junta del organismo multilateral no estaba al tanto de los generosos aumentos de salario que recibió Riza pese a que se encontraba en una "misión externa" en el Departamento de Estado de Estados Unidos."

Por su parte, el sindicato del Banco Mundial ha pedido la renuncia de Wolfowitz, pues "su conducta puso en tela de juicio la integridad y eficacia del Grupo del Banco Mundial y destruyó la confianza de sus empleados en su liderazgo". El sindicato advierte que no hubo representación de la asesoría legal del Banco durante las negociaciones del nuevo contrato de Shaha Riza, su pareja, aunque sí estaba presente su propio abogado personal. Señala también que el ex consejero general del Banco, Roberto Danino, rechazó los términos de la transferencia de la funcionaria al Departamento de Estado, lo que llevó a Wolfowitz a excluirlo de las negociaciones del contrato...

A todo ello se añade el hecho de que el actual presidente del Banco Mundial fue uno de los principales ideólogos de la invasión a Iraq, y que de los cinco nombramientos de altos funcionarios internacionales realizados por Wolfowitz en sus dos años en la presidencia del Banco, tres correspondieron a miembros de gobiernos que apoyaron la guerra de Estados Unidos contra Iraq: se trata del nuevo vicepresidente para Asuntos Externos del Banco y ex viceprimer ministro de Jordania, Marwan Muasher; la ex Ministra española de Asuntos Exteriores, Ana Palacio, nombrada Primera Vicepresidenta y Consejera Jurídica General del Grupo del Banco Mundial en junio de 2006; y Juan José Daboub, ex ministro de Finanzas de El Salvador y que se desempeña ahora como uno de los dos directores gerente del Banco.

Estos hechos llevan también a pensar que "Paul Wolfowitz usó su cargo para recompensar a gobiernos y personas que ayudaron a Estados Unidos en la guerra de Iraq", tal y como declaró el director del Programa Estratégico de la organización no gubernamental New America Foundation, Steven Clemens...

El formato Real Media de este fichero, permite visualizar documentos de análisis contextual sincronizadamente con el audio. Esto es posible con el programa Real One Player. Más Información.

Senator Kennedy gave a major policy speech on "Restoring the Rule of Law and Repairing the Supreme Court Nomination Process" at an event organized by the Alliance for Justice on March 29, 2007. Said event was held at the National Press Club.

Senator Kennedy spoke on constitutional checks and balances, the Supreme Court, and judicial nominations:

He stated that "At the heart of many of the serious challenges we face is the Bush administration's lack of respect for the rule of law. The administration views our system of justice as merely another arena for furthering its rightwing ideology. It sees the Senate's constitutional role in confirming those who enforce our laws as a road block to be circumvented whenever possible.

The ongoing scandal over the firing of United States attorneys is a stunning example. Using a stealth provision slipped into the Patriot Act reauthorization, the administration has replaced US attorneys without Senate review..."

"La indolencia de la Corte Suprema de Justicia de Estados Unidos ante el clamor de los más de 300 detenidos en la base naval de este país en Guantánamo, Cuba, es objeto de duros cuestionamientos por parte de activistas y expertos en derechos humanos.

La Corte decidió el 2 de abril no atender los casos de los musulmanes tomados prisioneros en la "guerra" de Estados Unidos "contra el terrorismo" y recluidos en Guantánamo, hasta que no se agoten las vías legales en tribunales de apelaciones de menor rango.

Como consecuencia, el principal tribunal estadounidense se negó a revisar la legalidad de la detención hasta que se cumplan, en todos los casos, los procedimientos previstos en la Ley de Tratamiento a Detenidos (DTA), aprobada en 2005.

Esa norma permite apelaciones de las decisiones tomadas por paneles militares ante tribunales civiles, pero muy limitadas...

Los tres jueces que redactaron el fallo, Anthony M. Kennedy y John Paul Stevens, anotaron que deseaban ver el proceso establecido por la DTA en acción antes de determinar si se trata de un sustituto adecuado para el hábeas corpus...

Abogados del Centro para los Derechos Constitucionales consideraron que el proceso en estos tribunales es "una farsa"..."

"The Central Intelligence Agency conducted a review of its "operational files" last year, as it is required to do every ten years under the CIA Information Act of 1984, to see if any such files could have their "operational" designation rescinded, making them subject to Freedom of Information Act requests... But instead of removing any files from operational status, as contemplated by the 1984 Act, the CIA added nearly two dozen new categories of files that will now be exempt from search and review under the FOIA, according to a newly disclosed report to Congress."

On the other hand, "The Department of Defense is seeking a broad new exemption from the Freedom of Information Act for unclassified information relating to weapons of mass destruction. According to the proposed legislation, 'Examples of such information could include ... formulas and design descriptions of lethal and incapacitating materials; maps, designs, security/emergency response plans, and vulnerability assessments for facilities containing weapons of mass destruction materials.' The proposal is puzzling because most such information, including that which is not classified, is already exempt from the FOIA..."

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, EPIC, informs that Members of Congress are calling for laws in the United States that would compel Internet service providers and telecom companies to store information about their customers for months or years and make those records available to the police upon request...

To date, law enforcement has not been able to show that retaining all users' data helps to solve criminal cases. Traffic data is seldom essential in criminal investigations and data retained for longer than 6 months is rarely useful.

Retaining all customer data could also raise serious security and privacy risks..."

Dos años después de conocidos los abusos a presos en la cárcel bagdadí de Abu Ghraib a manos de soldados de Estados Unidos, la justicia se muestra lenta en procesar a los acusados, según tres importantes organizaciones de derechos humanos.

Los redactores del informe constataron un patrón generalizado de maltrato en varios centros de detención, así como casos de tortura lisa y llana y al menos ocho homicidios.

El estudio registró 330 casos creíbles de abuso, que involucraron a 600 funcionarios estadounidenses y a 460 víctimas, en Afganistán, Iraq y el enclave naval del país norteamericano en Guantánamo, Cuba, desde fines de 2001...

El informe titulado "By The Numbers", consta de 27 páginas, y es el resultado de un proyecto conjunto denominado "Hallazgos del Proyecto sobre Abuso de Detenidos y Responsabilidad", que integran Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch y el Centro de Derechos Humanos y Justicia Global de la Universidad de Nueva York.

"Nuestra investigación demuestra que los abusos contra detenidos eran generalizados, y que pocos (responsables) fueron puestos verdaderamente a disposición de la justicia", agregó.

Apenas tres oficiales fueron condenados en tribunales marciales por su participación en abusos de detenidos, y ninguno por la doctrina de la responsabilidad de la cadena de mando.

"In December 2005, the New York Times reported that President Bush secretly issued an executive order in 2002 authorizing the National Security Agency (NSA) to conduct warrantless surveillance of international telephone and Internet communications on American soil. President Bush acknowledged the existence of the NSA surveillance program and vowed that its activities would continue.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center - EPIC- submitted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the NSA and four Department of Justice components just hours after the existence of the warrantless surveillance program was first reported. Noting the extraordinary public interest in the program — and its potential illegality — EPIC asked the agencies to expedite the processing of the requests...

Documents obtained by EPIC earlier in March 2006, through the FOIA litigation, reveal that a former top official in the Justice Department doubted that the domestic surveillace program was allowed under the Authorization for Use of Military Force Resolution..."

"When the Bush administration rewrote the rules for dealing with prisoners after 9/11, needlessly scrapping the Geneva Conventions and American law, it ignored the objections of lawyers for the armed services. Now, heedless of the lessons of Abu Ghraib, the civilians are once again running over the people in uniform. Tim Golden and Eric Schmitt reported yesterday in The Times that the administration is blocking the Pentagon from adopting the language of the Geneva Conventions to set rules for handling prisoners in the so-called war on terror...

Dana Priest reports in The Washington Post that even the Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine operators are getting nervous about the network of secret prisons they have around the world - including, of all places, at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe."

"Human Rights Watch has conducted independent research on the existence of secret detention locations that corroborates the Washington Post's allegations that there were detention facilities in Eastern Europe." Specifically, Human Rights Watch "have collected information that CIA airplanes traveling from Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004 made direct flights to remote airfields in Poland and Romania."

In turn, On November 7th. 2005, the Legal Affairs Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) appointed its Chairperson Dick Marty (from Switzerland, member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) as rapporteur to examine the subject of alleged secret CIA detention centres...

"The Bush Administration, through an amendment introduced by South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, has successfully stripped federal courts of jurisdiction to hear applications for habeas corpus brought by those unilaterally declared enemy combatants without any process and held by the U.S. indefinitely throughout the world and even in the United States.

This was accomplished by means of a last minute amendment to the Military Authorization Bill, brought up on the floor of the Senate without committee deliberations and virtually no advance warning to the American people that it was happening.

It was not only human rights groups like the Center for Constitutional Rights, but many in the military or retired from the military who opposed the Graham amendment: Judge John Gibbons, who argued the landmark case Rasul v. Bush before the Supreme Court; John Hutson, Dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center and former Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy, and the National Institute for Military Justice, among others, wrote open letters to the Senate to oppose the dismantling of habeas corpus..."

Le 2 novembre 2005, la Commission interaméricaine des droits de l'Homme a étendu les mesures de précaution en faveur des personnes indéfiniment détenues à Guantanamo par les Etats-Unis.

Les avocats de la Clinique de Droit International des Droits de l'Homme de la Faculté de Droit de l'Université Américaine de Washington et du Centre pour les Droits Constitutionnels, ont tenu une audience auprès de la commission, le 20 octobre.

Les mesures de la commission incluent les demandes suivantes :

• que le gouvernement des Etats-Unis garantisse que les détenus de Guantanamo ne soient pas transférés dans un pays dans lequel il existe des motifs substanciels leur faisant courir un risque d'être soumis à la torture ou à tout autre type de mauvais traitement ;
• que les Etats-Unis, en conformité avec le droit international, interdisent que toute déclaration obtenue sous la torture soit utilisée dans une procédure judiciaire ;
• que le gouvernement instruise et juge les cas d'abus et de torture, ce qui signifie que le Ministère de la Défense ne doit pas pouvoir continuer à enquêter sur ses propres actes ;
• et que ce soit un tribunal compétent qui détermine la condition juridique des détenus de Guantanamo, ce qui n'a pas été convenablement fait par les tribunaux militaires, ni par les procédures d'habeas corpus entamées jusqu'à présent.

"Lorsque l'Administration Bush a réécrit les règles de traitement des prisonniers à la suite du 11 septembre, en piétinant sans nécessité les conventions de Genève et le droit américain, elle a ignoré les objections des avocats des services militaires.

Aujourd'hui, ils font la sourde oreille face aux leçons d'Abu Ghraib : les civils de la maison blanches se sont de nouveau jetés sur les militaires. Tim Golden et Eric Schmitt ont annoncé hier dans le Times que l'administration empêche le Pentagone d'adopter les termes des conventions de Genève pour établir les règles sur le traitement des prisoniers dans ladite guerre contre le terrorisme...

M. Cheney, pièce détachée dans l'intention de légaliser la torture, est aujourd'hui à la tête d'une lutte en coulisses pour bloquer une mesure adoptée par le sénat, à 90 voix pour et 9 contre, qui imposerait les normes internationales et la législation américaine concernant le traitemant des prisonniers. M. Cheney voudrait une version différente, une version qui légalise les camps de la CIA, bien qu'ils soient occultes, et qui autorise l'usage de la torture par des agents de l'Intelligence. En conséquence, M. Bush a menacé d'exercer son droit de veto sur le budget militaire..."

On November 2, 2005, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights extended precautionary measures for the men being held indefinitely at Guantánamo Bay by the U.S. government.

Attorneys from the International Human Rights Clinic at American University's Washington College of Law and the Center for Constitutional Rights had a hearing before the Commission on October 20th.

The Commission's measures included requests:

• that the U.S. government ensure the detainees at Guantánamo are not transferred to countries where there are substantial grounds for believing they would be in danger of being subjected to torture or other mistreatment;
• that the U.S., in accordance with international law, not permit any statement obtained under torture to be used in a legal proceeding;
• that the government investigate and prosecute instances of abuse and torture, which does not mean letting the Department of Defense continue to investigate itself; and
• to have the legal status of the Guantánamo detainees determined by a competent tribunal, which has not been adequately addressed by the military tribunals or the habeas corpus proceedings to date.

"Cuando la administración Bush rescribió las reglas de trato de los presos después del 11S, arremetiendo sin necesidad contra las Convenciones de Ginebra y el derecho americano, ignoró las objeciones de los propios abogados de los servicios militares.

Ahora, haciendo oídos sordos a las lecciones de Abu Ghraib, los civiles se echan de nuevo sobre los uniformados. Tim Golden y Eric Schmitt informaban en The Times que la administración está impidiendo que el Pentágono adopte los términos propios de las Convenciones de Ginebra para establecer las reglas en el manejo y trato de prisioneros en la llamada guerra contra el terrorismo...

El Sr. Cheney, pieza destacada en el intento de legalizar la tortura, dirige ahora una lucha entre bastidores para bloquear una medida aprobada por el senado, por 90 votos a favor y 9 en contra, que impondría las normas internacionales y la legislación americana en el tratamiento a los prisioneros.

El Sr. Cheney quiere una versión diferente, una versión que trasforme en legales los campos de la CIA, aunque sigan ocultos, y que autorice el uso de la tortura por parte de los agentes de inteligencia..."

According to a report published on August 8, 2005 by the Washington Post, "the U.S. military has devised its first-ever war plans for guarding against and responding to terrorist attacks in the United States, envisioning 15 potential crisis scenarios and anticipating several simultaneous strikes around the country, according to officers who drafted the plans".

The report - elaborated by Bradley Graham, Washington Post Staff Writer - says that "the classified plans, developed at Northern Command headquarters, outline a variety of possible roles for quick-reaction forces estimated at as many as 3,000 ground troops per attack, a number that could easily grow depending on the extent of the damage and the abilities of civilian response teams.

The possible scenarios range from "low end," relatively modest crowd-control missions to "high-end," full-scale disaster management after catastrophic attacks such as the release of a deadly biological agent or the explosion of a radiological device, several officers said"...

On December 7, 2004 President Bush signed into effect the so-called Nethercutt Amendment, which suspends Economic Support Fund assistance to States Parties to the International Criminal Court or ICC who have not signed bilateral immunity agreements with the US.

What the Nethercutt Amendment does is exempt all U.S. nationals and contractors with the US from accountability for widespread and systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed on the territory of a signatory country.

On December 9th., 2004 the Dutch European Union Presidency made public its Declaration on the Nethercutt amendment, regretting its adoption...

The US has deployed its anti-ICC efforts during previous congressional sessions. The House and the Senate had approved on July 2002 another piece of legislation prohibiting US cooperation with the International Criminal Court: the American Servicemembers' Protection Act or ASPA...

The Bush Administration has also been conducting a vigorous campaign of trying to conclude bilateral international agreements that will remove US nationals from the reach of the Court. These are the so-called "Article 98 bilateral agreements"...

Also recently, the US has deployed its anti-ICC efforts before the UN General Assembly, where the US attempted to have the ICC taken off the UN General Assembly agenda. However, on November 19th, 2004, the GA Sixth Committee (Legal) unanimously passed its resolution (and corrigendum) on the ICC without a vote...When the GA Plenary adopted the resolution on December 2, 2004, the US delegation dissociated itself from consensus on the resolution.

On December 1st, 2004, the Center for Constitutional Rights asked two federal court judges to forcefully reject the Bush Administration's effort to dismiss 12 Habeas Corpus petitions brought on behalf of individuals detained at Guantanamo Bay.

In an extraordinary move, the government has essentially sought to overturn the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark case Rasul v. Bush.

On November 5th, 2004, a group of attorneys representing several Guantanamo detainees submitted a Memorandum in opposition to the government's motion to dismiss the instant habeas petitions.

The Petitioners assert in their Memorandum the following:

• that the President's exercise of his war powers is subject to judicial review
• that the Supreme Court has already determined that the Guantanamo detainees have stated a claim
• that pertinent case law, moreover, confirms that the detainees have due process rights under the Constitution that they may vindicate through habeas actions.
• that the detainees also have rights under the Geneva Conventions and other international law that may be vindicated in a habeas action and,
• that the detainees have common law rights that inhere in the habeas statute and do not depend upon the cognizability of rights otherwise provided by the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States.

On November 12th. 2004, a coalition of civil liberties groups filed a "friend of the court" brief encouraging the First Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a controversial ruling on email privacy.

The Center for Democracy and Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center or "EPIC", American Library Association, American Civil Liberties Union and Center for National Security Studies, argue in their brief that "the panel's decision creates serious constitutional questions under the Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure."

The issue in this case is whether an "intercept" of a communication occurred within the meaning of the Wiretap Act. In other words, whether email can be "intercepted" in violation of federal wiretap law while it is temporarily stored on an email server -- even if only for a fraction of a second...

"On December 6, 2004, eight U.S. soldiers – five stationed in Iraq, two in Kuwait on their way to Iraq, and one home on leave from Iraq about to be shipped back – filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Armed Services' so-called "stop loss" policy, which would require them to serve beyond their enlistment contracts...

Specialist Qualls and John Does 1 through 6 have each served out their full contracts but are being forced to extend their service. Specialist Qualls and John Does 1 and 2 had enlisted in the “Try One” program of the Army National Guard, which allows a veteran “to serve for only one year on a trial basis before committing to full enlistment."

In a decision dated November 8, 2004, US District Judge James Robertson ruled that it is unlawful to try prisoners detained at Guantánamo by the currently constituted Military Commissions.

"In his ruling on Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Judge Robertson asserted that the Geneva Conventions - the conventions signed by the United States and countries all over the world to govern the conduct of nations during wartime - protect those incarcerated at Guantánamo."

According to the Court, all those arrested in or around the conflict in Afghanistan must be treated as prisoners of war if there is any doubt as to their status.

Under the Geneva Conventions, prisoners of war must be provided the same legal process as the soldiers in the armed forces of the capturing army. Mr. Hamdan, the petitioner in the case, is, therefore, entitled to have his case heard by a properly convened military court or courts martial as defined under United States law...

In the case of Doe and ACLU v. Ashcroft et al., US District Judge Victor Marrero ruled, on September 28th, 2004, that "the compulsory, secret, and unreviewable production of information required by the FBI's application of 18 U.S.C. § 2709 violates the Fourth Amendment, and that the non-disclosure provision of 18 U.S.C. § 2709 (c) violates the First Amendment."

Plaintiffs in this case, "John Doe" - an internet access firm -, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the American Civil Liberties Foundation, "challenge the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 2709. That statute authorizes the Federal Bureau of Investigations to compel communications firms, such as internet service providers (ISPs) or telephone companies, to produce certain customer records whenever the FBI certifies that those records are "relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities".

The FBI demands under § 2709 are issued in the form of national security letters (NSLs), which constitute a unique form of administrative subpoena cloaked in secrecy and pertaining to national security issues. The statute bars all national security letters recipients from ever disclosing that the FBI has issued an National Security Letter.

The Court concluded that § 2709 violates the Fourth Amendment because, at least as currently applied, it effectively bars or substantially deters any judicial challenge to the propriety of an National Security Letter request. And also, that the permanent ban on disclosure contained in § 2709 (c) operates as an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech of the First Amendment.

"In general, as our sunshine laws and judicial doctrine attest, democracy abhors undue secrecy, in recognition that public knowledge secures freedom. Hence, an unlimited government warrant to conceal, effectively a form of secrecy per se, has no place in our open society.

Such a claim is especially inimical to democratic values for reasons borne out by painful experience. Under the mantle of secrecy, the self-preservation that ordinarily impels our government to censorship and secrecy may potentially be turned on ourselves as a weapon of self-destruction.

When withholding information from disclosure is no longer justified, when it ceases to foster the proper aims that initially may have supported confidentially, a categorical and uncritical extension of non-disclosure may become the cover for spurious ends that government may then deem too inconvenient, inexpedient, merely embarrassing, or even illicit to ever expose to the light of day.

At that point, secrecy’s protective shield may serve not as much to secure a safe country as simply to save face."

Richard Wilson is Professor of Law and Director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic at the American University of Washington and Equipo Nizkor collaborator.

This audio report is an update of the speech previously delivered, in March 2003, at the Seminar on "States of Exception and Strategies for Peace and for the Defense of Civil Rights", under the title: "US policy after 9/11: The situation of Detainees at Guantánamo Bay and the Inter-American Human Rights Commission Response".

Richard Wilson speaks about the developments in relationship to the individuals detained in Guantanamo Bay that have happened since that previous presentation, covering mainly the following topics:

• Information about children detained at Guantanamo
• Relationship of the Guantanamo Bay situation and the torture scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq
• Publication of internal Memoranda within the Bush Administration with regard to the approval of the use of torture by high ranking government lawyers
• The very important decisions of the US Supreme Court in June of 2004
• Current status of legal issues in Guantanamo
• Legal strategy pursued by lawyers in the U.S. in addressing those current issues
• Potential resources for further reading

Gregorio Dionis, Director del Equipo Nizkor, entrevista a Michael Levine, ex oficial de la DEA y agregado de esta agencia en Argentina y Uruguay entre 1979 y 1982.

Esta entrevista se realizó en el marco del "Seminario sobre estados de excepción y estrategias para la paz y la defensa de los derechos civiles", organizado por el Equipo Nizkor y celebrado en Bruselas del 27 al 29 de marzo de 2003.

Se trata de un testimonio único de alguien que conoció profundamente la relación entre los servicios de inteligencia y los mercados de producción y distribución de droga, tanto en el Sudeste Asiático como en América Latina.

Michael Levine nos habla, entre otras cuestiones, acerca de:

• Sus inicios en la DEA como agente secreto.
• Quién era Roberto Suárez, su relación con los denominados "Novios de la Muerte" del ex SS Klaus Barbie, y la política de Seguridad Nacional a principios de los '80 en países como Bolivia, Paraguay, etc... y de cómo muchos de los mercenarios de Roberto Suárez eran informantes de la CIA.
• El golpe de estado, conocido como el "Golpe de la Coca", llevado a cabo en Bolivia con la intervención de la Marina Argentina y la colaboración de Roberto Suárez.
• La relación de la mafia corsa con el Cártel de Juárez y los militares argentinos (caso Auguste Ricord).
• La relación entre las operaciones encubiertas o guerra sucia en zonas como Centroamérica o Afganistán y el narcotráfico.
• El caso de Centroamérica en los años 80-83 y similitud con el escenario actual colombiano.
• Relación entre crimen organizado, tráfico de drogas, lavado de dinero y servicios de inteligencia.
• Por qué la guerra contra las drogas es una estafa para el contribuyente estadounidense.
• El problema del uso de informantes falsos.
• Las políticas anti narcóticos después del 11/9.

El Tribunal Supremo de los Estados Unidos dictó sentencia, el 29 de junio de 2004, en el caso Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain.

La resolución de este caso podía afectar a la posibilidad que tienen las víctimas extranjeras de violaciones a los derechos humanos de interponer demandas, de corte civil, ante los tribunales estadounidenses por hechos acaecidos fuera de los Estados Unidos.

Si bien el Supremo no dio la razón al Sr. Alvarez-Machain, rechazó en cambio el intento de la Administración Bush de eliminar la posibilidad que tienen las víctimas de violaciones a los derechos humanos de llevar sus casos ante los tribunales de Estados Unidos al amparo de una ley conocida por su acrónimo en inglés, ATCA, esto es, Alien Tort Claims Act o Ley de Reclamación for Daños contra Extranjeros...

This speech by Prof. Richard Wilson was delivered at the seminar on "States of Exception and Strategies for Peace and for the Defence of Civil Rights", organized by Equipo Nizkor and held in Brussels between the 27th. and the 29th. of March 2003.

Richard Wilson analyses the "legal black hole" surrounding the status of the Guantanamo detainees, as well as the question of precautionary measures that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has asked the US government to adopt.

The Commission decided during its 114th regular period of sessions to adopt precautionary measures on behalf of the Guantanamo detainees. The Commission asserted that:

"....where persons find themselves within the authority and control of a state and where a circumstance of armed conflict may be involved, their fundamental rights may be determined in part by reference to international humanitarian law as well as international human rights law. Where it may be considered that the protections of international humanitarian law do not apply, however, such persons remain the beneficiaries at least of the non-derogable protections under international human rights law. In short, no person under the authority and control of a state, regardless of his or her circumstances, is devoid of legal protection for his or her fundamental and non-derogable human rights".

This speech was first recorded in Brussels (Belgium) on March 27, 2003; its digitization, production and online posting have been carried out by Radio Nizkor on February 22, 2004.

In order to do so, you may e-mail us at Editor Radio Nizkor.

You may find further information on the Iraq War and other 'state of exception' policies at the website of Equipo Nizkor